


Back In Black and White

by MsFaust



Series: Inky Tales [194]
Category: Bendy and the Ink Machine
Genre: Rubberhose AU, Safety list compliant AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-02
Updated: 2019-02-02
Packaged: 2019-10-21 06:11:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17637305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MsFaust/pseuds/MsFaust
Summary: A safety list-compliant version of yunisverse’s Rubberhose AU.Alice had more than two voice actresses.





	Back In Black and White

**Author's Note:**

> Safe: Wally, Sammy, Susie, Shawn, Allison, Thomas, and Lacie

Kneeling outside the recording booth, Alanna Parris looked down at her hands, from which drops of ink oozed and fell to the floor. Unlike most of the others, she didn’t seem to be melting, even though her pinky fingers were both gone. Deep down, she felt that there was something inside her, something trying to merge itself with her.

 

She turned her hands over, seeing that all the color was gone. Additionally, her lower arms had turned black as the ink running off her.

 

 _Just stay calm_ , _Alanna_ , she told herself. _Panicking won’t help._

 

Bracing herself against the booth window for support, she got to her feet and looked at her reflection. Much to her surprise, her skin was turning white as freshly fallen snow, and two small white objects were starting to peek out from under her dark hair.

 

“Alice?” she murmured.

 

Without warning, there was a sharp yanking sensation inside, like whatever was trying to merge with her—Alice’s essence, she suspected—was being pulled on. Someone was trying to steal it, and she had a pretty good idea who.

 

_Lauren!_

 

Lauren Blondell had started working at the studio roughly a week before Allison quit, and had eagerly sought to take over as the voice of Alice Angel. When Joey gave the part to Alanna instead, Lauren was enraged. She became obsessed, doing everything she could to persuade Joey to give her the role. Even though she had always been something of a bitch, to put it bluntly, her desire to be Alice’s voice had turned her into a monster. And now, she was trying to become Alice for real. Something told Alanna that if Lauren was successful, it would end badly.

 

_Only one way to stop her._

 

Closing her eyes, Alanna mentally took hold of Alice’s essence, pulling it towards her.

 

 _Go ahead_ , she thought. _Take me._

 

<No!> Lauren screamed in her mind. <Stop this at once!>

 

<Joey may have been a terrible boss,> Alanna thought back. <But he was right to give me the part instead of you. You’re nothing like Alice.>

 

<She...is...mine!>

 

“No!” Alanna shouted defiantly. “She’s not!”

 

With one last mental tug, Alanna felt the essence being pulled out of Lauren’s grasp. It flowed into her, consuming her soul to stabilize itself. But she didn’t struggle, for as long as it was out of Lauren’s grasp, it didn’t matter what happened to her.

 

(BATIM)

 

Things had settled down since that day. Although most of the studio’s residents missed being human, they’d come to accept their new forms. It certainly helped that being liquid meant they could change shape. Still, there were some drawbacks, not the least of which was Lauren. Even though Alanna had stopped her from claiming Alice’s essence, the madwoman had somehow attained a form very similar in appearance to the angel. What’s worse, in her efforts to rid herself of the flaws in her appearance, she had been hunting down Searchers, Butcher Gang copies, and most frequently Boris, killing them and harvesting their ink and guts to use in some demented form of beauty treatment. Even though they didn’t stay dead, it was never pleasant, so they avoided her.

 

Meanwhile, the real Alice did what she could to help, looking for ways to stabilize Bendy and Boris. In doing so, she learned quite a bit about the ones who quit before everything went so wrong. All eight of them—Henry, Wally, Sammy, Susie, Shawn, Allison, Thomas, and Lacie—were doing very well, and there was no chance of any of them coming back and meeting the same kind of fate as their former colleagues.

 

Well, most of them.

 

“Everyone said that if anyone who got out would be willing to come back, it’d be you,” she told the Toonified animator. “You and Joey used to be friends.”

 

“That was before I knew what kind of monster he really was,” Henry told her. “After what he did to everyone who didn’t get out in time...”

 

He sighed. “Though I can see why they stayed. Joey‘s always been charismatic.”

 

Neither Boris nor Alice knew what to say, so there was silence for a while. As they reached the elevator, Alice spoke up again.

 

“So you don’t know what Alanna was like?”

 

“No,” Henry admitted. “Though I do know Susie and Allison. And I’m sure they’d be happy to meet you once we get out.”

 

“You...you‘re really going to take us with you?”

 

“Of course I am,” said Henry reassuringly. “And Bendy, too, once we’ve talked some sense into him. You guys deserve better.”


End file.
